Apple v Epic...ding ding round 1

james.miller said:
"Epic Games has defied the app store monopoly".

I mean that's super rich coming from Epic.
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Tim Sweeny has a serious issue with app stores and the cut they take, always banging on how it's too much. Fair play to the fella his store is a bit bobbins but the devs get a bigger slice.

Apple can't really cave as would set a precedent for all other app devs to do the same, why give Apple their 30%.
 
Epic aren't looking for money here either but want the changes to be made across the board so it favours everyone, which I can get behind. It's a consumer friendly action from Epic who are offering a cheap price but say it's on the app store owner who wants to charge you more.

Regarding the exclusive deals, this is to get people to start to use another service other than Steam. Getting those games on the store for a limited time will mean people have to start looking at another store. Once there they hope people will continue to use it. It's the reason for the free games as well, to entice people.

Epic had a big issue with a HUGE majority of people using their store playing Fortnite and never anything else. It was a one game show. That's fine short term but Fortnite won't last forever so they need to build something around it, to fill that void, when it eventually happens.
 
I'm with Epic on this one.

Could argue that Apple are a bunch of crooks with the extortionate amount that they charge. Either way they have a monopoly that's forcing devs to lose a fairly significant amount, and unless Apple can justify the costs of the payment platform, they absolutely should lose in court.
 
Semple said:
I'm with Epic on this one.

Could argue that Apple are a bunch of crooks with the extortionate amount that they charge. Either way they have a monopoly that's forcing devs to lose a fairly significant amount, and unless Apple can justify the costs of the payment platform, they absolutely should lose in court.
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the thing is, it’s standard across the industry.
30% on play store, 30% to digitally publish on Nintendo e shop/Xbox/PlayStation etc
 
Was only a matter of time as we all know Mr Sweeny doesnt like sharing profits with anyone (regardless of his knight in shining armour outfit).
Like watching two dog turds battle it out as to who smells the least tbh..
 
Hope Epic get screwed over tbh. This was a planned move to get some publicity and neither Apple nor Google should be held to ransom. They should just permanently ban the Fortnite app, see how far that gets Epic.
 
Semple said:
Could argue that Apple are a bunch of crooks with the extortionate amount that they charge. Either way they have a monopoly that's forcing devs to lose a fairly significant amount, and unless Apple can justify the costs of the payment platform, they absolutely should lose in court.
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I can understand discussing the amount charged, but I don't see how it makes Apple crooks in any way. The app store is theirs, created by them, built up by them and customers who are loyal to the brand. Apple have pretty much created the marketplace and developers have the opportunity (without a penny upfront cost) to sell their products in a way they never have before.

I sell a product on Amazon and Amazon take a 30% cut of every sale. Would I prefer it to be less? Of course. However, if Amazon had not existed or had not created this market, I would not have anywhere to sell my product and I would be much poorer because of it.
 
I'm surprised there isn't a thread about this in GD as it isn't really about the games or the consumer, its all about Epic wanting to get more profit for themselves and more control. I find it highly interesting that they are not going after the console market given the cut is exactly the same. Let's not forget that Sony has a significant stake in Epic and was an Apple 'competitor' in the mobile phone space. Now Tencent also has a significant stake and all of the current shenanigans with them and trump, who knows who is pulling the strings here?

Back in the day of retail distribution these companies would have paid up to 70% to the retailer, 30% isn't completely extortionate given what Apple and Google actually provide.

They have both built up the platform from scratch, built the user base, built the store, built all the development tools and offer them to developers for next to nothing, they offer space on the app store for free, they promote good content for free, they only actually charge the developer when they sell something. Developers don't pay for all of the bandwidth needed to distribute the content, not do they pay them to review apps to ensure the quality is good enough.

That said I can see why Epic want a bigger piece of the pie, it's all business at the end of the day.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
I'm surprised there isn't a thread about this in GD as it isn't really about the games or the consumer, its all about Epic wanting to get more profit for themselves and more control. I find it highly interesting that they are not going after the console market given the cut is exactly the same. Let's not forget that Sony has a significant stake in Epic and was an Apple 'competitor' in the mobile phone space. Now Tencent also has a significant stake and all of the current shenanigans with them and trump, who knows who is pulling the strings here?

Back in the day of retail distribution these companies would have paid up to 70% to the retailer, 30% isn't completely extortionate given what Apple and Google actually provide.

They have both built up the platform from scratch, built the user base, built the store, built all the development tools and offer them to developers for next to nothing, they offer space on the app store for free, they promote good content for free, they only actually charge the developer when they sell something. Developers don't pay for all of the bandwidth needed to distribute the content, not do they pay them to review apps to ensure the quality is good enough.

That said I can see why Epic want a bigger piece of the pie, it's all business at the end of the day.
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Epic don't want a bigger piece of the pie, they reduced the price of v-bucks and gave the consumer the saving.

They built a generic store yet a developer builds a game/app and the store takes nearly one third of the cost and that's not a third of the profit a company makes per game it's off the price of the product; how is that fair?
 
Jonnybmac said:
Epic don't want a bigger piece of the pie, they reduced the price of v-bucks and gave the consumer the saving.

They built a generic store yet a developer builds a game/app and the store takes nearly one third of the cost and that's not a third of the profit a company makes per game it's off the price of the product; how is that fair?
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Apple/Google at 9.99 - 30% = £7 to epic VS. £8 directly to epic, it costs less than £1 to process the transaction.

Which every way you look at it, Epic are making more money after the ‘discount’.

You have to remember that Fortnight took £1.8b last year. Even a small % increase in profit per transaction will net Epic tens of millions of £ per year.

why are epic only going after the mobile platforms when their investors (Sony) platform does exactly the same and chargers the same fee? It seems to be they are jumping on the Spotify bandwagon more than trying to create a fair market.

Apple and Google have built those platforms from scratch and have real costs to run them. Why shouldn’t they be paid by those who seek to make profit from their customers?

I’m sure there is a debate to be had about how much is a ‘fair’ amount. In the case of Apple their store if a fairly significant source of revenue. Google, less so.

if they dislike Apple and Google so much they should create their own platform like they did on PC? We know why they won’t it’s because it will cost more money than they have to be successful so it’s easier to try and disrupt/dismantle the existing players than to try and compete with them.
 
Sony do not have a significant stake in Epic at all. They invested $250m which sounds like a lot but is a relatively small and minor stake in Epic due to Epics total estimated value raised in the recent funding it received.

The arguments against both stores is that they have a monopoloy on their devices, much in the same way Microsoft did with Windows and they were forced to be more open and allow more competition. The choice of browser selector you use for instance is a by product of anti-competition legal challenges against Microsoft. Yet when it comes to iOS and Anroid, which argubably have a much larger importance in the day to day lives of people, they have very few options. The default apps are forced upon people by the contracts Google put in place and they block attempts to install others.

There was a good breakdown of the differences between the legal arguments against Android and Apple I read as they are not 1-2-1. In the case against Google, Epic are saying that Google are forcing manufactuers to block the installation of some software on Android devices. For instance, Epic were trying to make a deal with OnePlus to have the Epic launcher installed on their devices. OnePlus told them that Google blocked this from happening. You mention creating its own platform, are you referring to a phone OS or an app store? In the example I gave before, they have tried in some cases and get blocked.
 
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